Colourful illustration of a tenor saxophone, with bursts of colour coming from the bell

Music

my practice (and how i got there)

A little bit of information of what I do as a musician and how I got there.

Exploration and reinvention

As a musician I am always exploring. It’s part of my nature to choose very varying projects to work on, stick with it until it’s how I want it, then move on to something entirely different. Currently this means that I’m working with live electronics. The sounds and characters that electronic music can give are so different from the traditional repertoire, and I love the incredibly broad range this genre has. 

I’m an intuitive player – I play what comes to me and if I like it, I stick to it. This goes for ‘traditional’ classical music – for as far we can speak of that in the world of classical saxophone – but especially for contemporary genres. I like to combine new saxophone music with my personal explorations into improvisational pieces (and maybe some own works). 

A little more back in time...

My musical studies have been varied and haven’t always been limited to just conservatory education. In fact, I started with a Liberal Arts degree (University College Roosevelt, Middelburg) where I took courses in musicology and educational sciences, but also some computer sciences and art history (and for some reason, economics. We don’t talk about economics.)

A little more back in time? I was born in 1997 in Oost-Souburg, Zeeland, the Netherlands. When I was seven years old I started with recorder lessons, and after two years of happy squeaks I decided to switch to the saxophone. I say ‘decided’, but my mum picked saxophone for me because I literally could not distinguish a trumpet from a french horn. Luckily, it was a good choice 🙂 

I took lessons at the local music school (where I teach now) and happily continued making a lot of noise on the saxophone. As a teenager I met Andreas van Zoelen, with whom I subsequently studied during my years at university, and with whom I later also did my Bachelor of Music. Currently I am broadening my musical perspectives with a Master of Music with Ties Mellema and Andreas van Zoelen.

Arrangements

Some of my projects are also available to others. Here is a small selection of arrangements that you can either buy or get for free. If you want any information on acquiring scores that don’t have a download link, drop me a message